What's holding you back?

If you’ve been raising money for any length of time, you know that it’s not always the easiest job.

In fact, sometimes, it can be downright hard.

Let me tell you about a conversation I had recently with a client.

This woman is a smart, educated, professional Executive Director of a rather large nonprofit. She’s fairly new in the job, and as you can imagine, she’s still coming up to speed on the organization’s programs, and getting to know the staff and Board. She’s also spending some time visiting with some of the organization’s donors.

From our previous coaching sessions, I know she cares about the mission and deeply wants to serve the people of the community. Raising money is high on the priority list, yet she’s having trouble actually asking for a gift.

“I don’t mind asking someone to volunteer or to help with an event,” she said to me. “But asking for money intimidates me.”

I’m not surprised.

Money has a lot of emotional and psychological baggage associated with it. The minute we start talking with a donor about money, all that crap we carry around from our past experiences comes up and gets in our way.

I find that resistance to asking for money often stems from mindset.

Mindset is your way of thinking and looking at the world. If you have a negative mindset about money or wealth, you’re likely to have a tough time asking for donations, especially large ones.

Your current mindset is a result of a lifetime of programming.

Your mind interprets every experience you had throughout your life and uses it to shape your views on things. Think about this: when you were little, if there was a fight every time money was discussed in your home, you may well have some fear around talking about money.

And if you were like me and your parents said snotty things about people who appeared to have money, you may have some negative mindset about “rich” people (which took me a long time to work through and clear up).

All of this stuff gets in our way as fundraisers.

So, back to my client.

As we talked, it became clear that there were mindset issues at play for her and they were holding her back. With a bit of coaching and some personal work on her part, she’s well on her way to overcoming these obstacles. By identifying what’s holding her back and changing her mindset, she can be about the business of raising big money to change lives in her community.

Now it’s your turn to identify your mindset issues. What’s holding you back? Do you ever find yourself thinking or saying any of these?

“I can’t hit up my friends for money”

“Our cause isn’t sexy. We don’t have puppies and kittens like the animal shelter.”

“We’re just a small nonprofit”

“I’m not good at fundraising”

“Fundraising is so competitive with all the nonprofits out there”

These are all signs of negative mindset. The good news is that they can all be overcome.

One approach that I’ve found helps people to overcome the fear of asking for money is to ask them to think of a time when they felt good about having made a donation. This shifts their mindset from one where they’re thinking about either having been rejected or having felt uncomfortable about rejecting someone else’s request, to focusing on elements that make giving a positive experience.

It’s a short step from there to getting them to view the donation request as an occasion to offer someone the opportunity to feel good about doing something good. The key is to frame the solicitation not as a request for money, but as an opportunity for the prospective donor to take a positive step towards accomplishing his or her own philanthropic vision.

What People are Saying

“About 4 years ago we were deep in the hole. Thanks to Sandy and her system, we now have 6 months operating expenses in a reserve fund and an endowment! We have stable and diversified funding and strong individual donors. Not to mention a lot less stress!”